Certifications for Organizations

The FinOps Foundation offers five different certifications for Vendor Members, Training Partners and Enterprise Organizations.

Certification Requirements

Current certifications will be soft-vetted by the FinOps staff and then presented to the Technical Advisory Council for approval. As the FinOps Framework is adjusted and built out we will move towards a core function model for future certifications or renewals.

Email partner-cert@finops.org to learn more about certified Vendor Members and to start the certification process.

FinOps Practitioner Certifications Requirements

The individual certification requirements below apply to all Member Certifications. For example, if your organization has 1200 people in it and want to achieve the FinOps Certified Platform certification, then you need to have at least 35 individuals—who are actively working at the company—who have individually achieved the FinOps Certified Practitioner certification.

1 FinOps Certified Professional counts for 5 FinOps Certified Practitioners.

Please note that the employee count is based on the size of the parent organization, not the individual business unit. For example, a 100 person product team who is part of a 1500 person organization would fall into the 500-4999 tier, not the 100-499 tier.

FinOps Certified Platform

Tier of technology providers that license and deliver a software product, or are founders/maintainers of an open-source project, to help FinOps practitioners successfully adopt cloud financial management practices aligned with the FinOps Framework. You can address a number of use cases and be rolled out quickly across an organization. Requirements include:

After completing the requirements above, the Vendor Member Certification team will request a 60 minute live video demo of your tool to validate the product.

FinOps Certified Specialty Solution

Tier of technology providers that license and deliver a software product that contains a subset of the functionality found in the Certified Platform products and is specialized for helping FinOps practitioners solve a specific subset of their cloud cost management challenges. Requirements include:

After completing the requirements above, the certification review team may request a live video demo of your tool to validate the product.

FinOps Certified Service Provider

A pre-qualified tier of vetted service providers who have deep experience helping enterprises successfully adopt cloud financial management practices. The FinOps certified service providers offer FinOps support, consulting, professional services and training for organizations embarking on their cloud financial management journey. Requirements include:

FinOps Certified Training Partner

FinOps Foundation recognizes a select group of FinOps Training Partners. This is a tier of vetted training providers who have deep experience in FinOps training.

FinOps Certified Enterprise

FinOps experienced enterprises that continually advance their practices while contributing to the greater community. To be eligible, Enterprises need to be General or Premier Members of the FinOps Foundation and earn points based on the criteria below:

NOTE: FinOps Certification Achieved at 100 Points total. A minimum of 15 points of the total must be from the “Demonstrate FinOps Program” Category.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What’s the difference between a FinOps Certified Platform and FinOps Certified Specialty Solution?
  • Both Platform and Specialist Solution are a value type of FinOps Tools. A FinOps Platform refers to a full service FinOps tool that solves all use cases for a FinOps Practitioner. A FinOps Speciality Solution refers to a FinOps tool that focuses on one very specific FinOps use case such as rate optimization or container cost management. See the list of current FinOps Certified Platforms and FinOps Certified Speciality Solutions for more examples. 
• Who is eligible for FinOps Certified Enterprise?
  • FinOps Certified Enterprise is designed for a FinOps team that is run by FinOps Practitioners. FinOps Practitioners are defined as someone who must:  (i) be actively working in FinOps: (a) in an executive capacity, such as a Chief Information Officer or Chief Technology Officer; (b) in IT/engineering and operations; (c) in finance and/or procurement; (d) as a FinOps practitioner; or (e) in a similar capacity (regardless of title); (ii) not be employed by a FinOps, cloud, or cloud management vendor; and (iii) not have FinOps-related sales, marketing, or business development as their primary business.
• When can I schedule a demo or interview?
  • After you have submitted all required documentation, the Member certification review team will review the documentation and may reach out to you when they are ready to complete the certification process.
• What is the definition of a contributor for a working group?
  • A contributor is defined as someone who is interested in the subject matter and is willing and able to participate in the WG. These individual are expected to perform the following duties:  
    • Regularly attend WG meetings (at least 50%)
    • Actively contribute to WG efforts by taking on action items and participating in group discussions
    • Assist working group lead with their duties as needed
    • For additional details, see the Working Group FAQ
• Who is required to have a FinOps Certified Practitioner to meet the certification requirement?
  • Organizations are required to have enough associates that are FinOps Certified Practitioner trained based on the Company Size in the table below. The Company Size is determined on the parent organization size which was used for defining your fee structure to the Linux Foundation. 

  • Company Size	FinOps Certified Practitioners Required
    5000+	50
    500-4999	35
    100-499	10
    0-99	3

• What is an example of mapping features to tool features to FinOps Domains and  Capabilities?
  • Below is an overly simplified example that was used for demonstration purposes with the Technical Advisory Council when developing the certification requirements. 

• Who should I contact to create my “active product support slack channel”?
  • Please email partner-cert@finops.org to have your channel created. 
• Where should I go if my question isn’t answered in this list?
  • Congratulations on making it this far! Please email partner-cert@finops.org for any additional questions